Groundwater drought (below normal groundwater levels) is a major and potentially increasing threat to water security globally, because society becomes more and more dependent on groundwater for various purposes. Our research focuses on the processes underlying the development of groundwater drought in different parts of the world taking into account meteorological drivers, hydrogeological and land surface characteristics, and human influences.
The European Groundwater Drought Initiative (GDI) brings together partners and data to assess the status of groundwater droughts and their impacts at the European scale. This work is done together with John Bloomfield at the British Geological Survey.
This research is done by Doris Wendt & Benedikt Heudorfer.
Project information & updates:
- The European Groundwater Drought Initiative (funded by the NERC International Opportunities Fund)
Featured publications:
- Wendt et al. (2018) – Quantifying feedback processes between abstraction and groundwater droughts
- Van Loon et al. (2017) – Testing the use of standardised indices and GRACE satellite data to estimate the European 2015 groundwater drought in near-real time – Hydrology and Earth System Sciences
- Kumar et al. (2016) – Multiscale evaluation of the Standardized Precipitation Index as a groundwater drought indicator – Hydrology and Earth System Sciences
International network:
- UNESCO EURO-FRIEND Low Flow and Drought group
- IAHS Panta Rhei working group “Drought in the Anthropocene”
Hydrological extremes @ Amsterdam 